Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies or substitutions for the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Stewart Dobson who was substituted by Cllr David Halik and Cllr David Jenkins who was substituted by Cllr Ruth Hopkinson.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 5 December 2018. (Copy attached)

Resolved:

To confirm and sign the minutes of the previous meeting held on 5 December 2018.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

Cllr Andrew Davis declared a non-pecuniary interest in that he was a member of Warminster Town Council but had not taken part in the debates when the two Northacre applications were considered.  

To receive any announcements through the Chair.

There were no Chairman’s announcements made at the meeting.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

Members of the public who wish to speak either in favour or against an application or any other item on this agenda are asked to register by phone, email or in person no later than 10.20am on the day of the meeting.

The rules on public participation in respect of planning applications are detailed in the Council’s Planning Code of Good Practice. The Chairman will allow up to 3 speakers in favour and up to 3 speakers against an application and up to 3 speakers on any other item on this agenda. Each speaker will be given up to 3 minutes and invited to speak immediately prior to the item being considered.

Members of the public will have had the opportunity to make representations on the planning applications and to contact and lobby their local member and any other members of the planning committee prior to the meeting. Lobbying once the debate has started at the meeting is not permitted, including the circulation of new information, written or photographic which have not been verified by planning officers.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution which excludes, in particular, questions on non-determined planning applications.

Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named on the front of this agenda no later than 5pm on Wednesday 16 January 2019 in order to be guaranteed of a written response. In order to receive a verbal response questions must be submitted no later than 5pm on Friday 18 January 2019. Please contact the officer named on the front of this agenda for further advice. Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

There were no questions or statements submitted.

To receive details of completed and pending appeals, and any other updates as appropriate.

An update on planning appeals and decisions was received.

Resolved:

To note the contents of the update.

A report by the Case Officer is attached.

The Case Officer informed the Committee that the Secretary of State had received a request to ‘call-in’ this planning application at Northacre Industrial Estate, Westbury. The Secretary of State would be unable to commence his consideration of this request until such time as this Council had reached its decision on the planning application. Should this Committee be minded to approve the application then the Secretary of State could begin his consideration and decide whether or not to call in the application for his own determination.

The Committee received a presentation from the Case Officer which set out the issues in respect of the application. The presentation referred to late representations from interested parties; these were circulated to the Committee.  The Case Officer commented on the late representations as follows:

Regarding the email from Schlomo Dowen, United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) – this was critical of the Committee report, stating that, firstly, the proposal should be treated as a D10 (‘Disposal’) operation at the bottom of the Waste Hierarchy unless and until it could be demonstrated it would meet and maintain R1 (‘Recovery’) status through the achievement of the relevant threshold; and secondly, the fact that that it was a gasification plant or that it would treat non-municipal solid waste feedstock did not provide an exemption from this.

In response, the Case Officer stated that the Waste Hierarchy was clearly set out in various planning policy documents including DEFRA’s ‘Guidance on applying the Waste Hierarchy’ and this Council’s own Development Plan.  These documents did not rely on R1 calculation to confirm that gasification was a recovery operation. The presence or absence of R1 status was not a barrier to planning.  In actuality, the D and R codings were ‘just’ a means of establishing efficiency, as applied by the Environment Agency in a different regulatory capacity.

To confirm this, in a High Court case relating to a site in Derbyshire a third party argued that a Planning Inspector was wrong to conclude that a proposal without R1 status was not the same as ‘disposal’ to landfill.  The judge did not accept the argument – he said ….

‘I am left in no doubt that the inspector did what he was required to do, which was to apply the waste hierarchy in a practical way by asking whether the proposal would achieve the best overall environmental outcome, and that he was fully entitled to conclude that the proposal would result in waste being treated higher up the waste hierarchy than disposal to landfill’.

The Case Officer confirmed that this was exactly what his report was doing, and he drew attention to the following sections of his report:-

‘Policy WCS5 of the Wiltshire and Swindon Waste Core Strategy provides an order of preference, or hierarchy, for waste disposal in the interests of sustainability.  The purpose of the hierarchy is to bring to the fore the preference for ‘elimination’ over other forms of waste management; the hierarchy is not intended to bar all  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

A report by the Case Officer is attached.

The Committee received a presentation by the Case Officer which set out the issues in respect of the application. The purpose of the report was to consider the proposed development and the recommendation that planning permission is granted subject to conditions.

Members then had the opportunity to ask technical questions after which they heard statements from members of the public as follows:-

·                     Ms Harriet James, a local resident spoke in opposition to the proposal.

·                     Mr Ed Dodd, representing Hills Waste Solutions, spoke in support of the proposal.

On the proposal of the Chairman, which was seconded by Cllr David Halik,

Resolved:

To grant planning permission, subject to the following conditions:-

To note that the next meeting of this Committee is due to be held on Wednesday 20 February 2019 at County Hall, Trowbridge, starting at 10.30am.

Resolved:

To note that the next meeting of this Committee was due to be held on Wednesday 20 February 2019 at County Hall, Trowbridge, starting at 10.30am.

Any other items of business, which in the opinion of the Chairman, should be taken as a matter of urgency.

There were no items of urgent business.